Sunday, 24 January 2010

Around 1980, Janet Street-Porter was fronting 20th Century Box and being touted as a bit of a clever young stick.

She's knocking on a bit now though, poor love, and instead of ferreting away to find the truth behind the news, as was her way, she now just sucks up any old healthist spew.

Editor-At-Large: Only a price rise will stop Britain's booze culture

You know where this is going now, don't you?

Right, just a suggestion to soften your anger, try imagining the quotes being spoken by JSP's dentally-strangled voice.

Let's practice that with the first para.

Why are politicians so feeble about tackling alcohol abuse? Last week the Tories and Labour presented their big plans to deal with the crisis that's costing the NHS millions, and turning our city centres into horrible places you avoid at all costs.

Bet you smiled when reading the word 'horrible', yes?

OK, dry run over, the rest is not a drill.

In this phoney booze war politicians have plenty of policies, but they're toothless.

NO! Ignore the toothess line, chuckle-making as that sounds - it's what went before I was going to mention. Listen, Janet dear, you have never been as unintentionally accurate. This booze 'war' is as phoney as phoney gets. There's no war, there's no battle, it shouldn't even be a fucking skirmish.

The Lib Dems remain the only party to back a minimum price per unit of alcohol, and a ban on advertising and sponsorship.

Yes, isn't that ironic? The only party with liberal in their name shrieking about bans and illiberal, enforced price increases. Of course, JSP can't see the contradiction, nor does she want to. She is sucking up righteous misinformation as thirstily as your (un)friendly neighbourhood wino necks the Special Brew.

The drinks industry, and their persuasive lobby organisation, the Portman Group, are so powerful that relatively sane politicians like the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, now make the ludicrous claim that fixing the price of drink will unfairly affect those on low incomes.

Yes, ludicrous, so it is. Ludicrous to assume that a price rise will hit the poor first. Who ever heard of anything so illogical, eh JSP?

Talk about a warped view of liberty – the freedom of choice for a generation of young men and women to wreck their health at rock-bottom prices.

Totally warped Janet. I mean, whoever believed liberty should be about allowing people to make their own decisions, rightly or wrongly? That way lies madness and a return to the bad old days which created Great Britain and the United States. China and the former Soviet Union had the right idea all along. Who knew?

Ranged against the Portman Group and their paymasters are all this country's leading medical bodies. Those who want minimum pricing and a ban on advertising include the British Medical Association, the Chief Medical Officer for England, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and the Royal Society for Public Health.

Because that's the true route to liberty - state funded bodies dictating what choices you are allowed to make.

The British Medical Journal reckons the real price of alcohol has fallen by 70 per cent since 1980, and is only 11p a unit in some supermarkets. Has any other commodity with the capacity to cause serious harm become so cheap and so readily available?

The Lib Dems are right: minimum pricing and an advertising ban are logical. But very unlikely.

I think you're confused, duckie. The chances of the Lib Dems being allowed into government are extremely unlikely, as are the chances of them becoming vaguely liberal anytime soon. The likelihood of minimum pricing being adopted in England, however, is very possible while blinkered, and ignorant fuckweasels, such as you, continue to believe such execrable nonsense from neo-prohibitonists.

To use the condescending terminology you employ in your ill-informed and slavish piece. The fact that people, who have previously shown themselves capable of independent thought, can be sucked in by propaganda over a problem which doesn't exist in any great measure, is laughable.

8 comments:

I have just read Janet Street P's article. I wonder how long it took to compose? I wonder how many inputs were required, in order to involve as many horror situations as possible, before the final article was published? If you read the article carefully, it is possible to see how various sections were added, in order to increase the impact.

You very rightly take the article apart and contest the facts. But, are we sure that this is the best way to go about obtaining our objectives?

It seems to me that the people of this country are being subjected to a 'divide et impera' regime.

There are ways in which the 'divide et impera' regime can be overcome.

As regards Health (including 'alcohol abuse'), it is absolutely of the greatest importance to be able to say, "My Health is my business. If I choose to be 'unhealthy', I have a right to be so". If, as a result, doctors refuse to treat one, then so be it - my right to be unhealthy, if I so wish, is paramount.

The second idea that needs to be explored and exposed is the idea that one's actions 'make other people unhealthy'. But, one might reasonably ask, "How much unhealthy?". For example, spreading a cold virus is quite different from spreading the AIDS virus.

The whole Janet Street P's article relies upon the idea that she can dictate. If one reads the article carefully, one cannot interpret what she says in any other way than the thought that "You must do as I say".

Somehow or other, we have to prove these two things:

1. How I live my life is my business.

2. Life is a risky business and we are all going to die sooner or later.

I think that I could have put the above thoughts better. Perhaps you can.

Anonymous 02:29 I agree with pretty much every word in your comment. What worries me is not that paid pontificators come out with this tosh, but that the public commenting underneath it agree with it a depressingly large number of times. I don't know about JSP's article, but I have seen the smug "I am a good person and do everything I am told brige" parading their total lack of an opinion in everything from the Graun to the Mail. Oh and eventually passing on a cold virus or any other infection will be dubbed second hand disease and will almost certainly be banned. That is how rational the people behind this rubbish are.